This paper provides new evidence on the factors affecting protracted credit contraction in the wake of the global financial crisis. The paper applies panel vector autoregressions to a global panel that consists of quarterly data for 41 countries for the period 2000-2011 and documents that domestic private credit growth is highly sensitive to cross-border funding shocks around the world.
... Voir la suite This relationship is significantly stronger in Central and Eastern Europe, a region with considerably stronger foreign presence, higher cross-border funding, and elevated loan-to-deposit ratios compared with the rest of the world. The paper shows that high foreign ownership per se does not appear to explain credit response differences to foreign funding shocks. Rather, there is a stronger response in countries that exhibit high loan-to-deposit ratios and a high reliance on foreign funding relative to local deposits. The results suggest that funding model differences were at the heart of the post-crisis credit contraction in several Central and Eastern European countries. These findings have important regulatory and supervisory implications for emerging countries in Central and Eastern Europe as well as for other countries.
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Since the 1990s, financial systems around the world, and especially those in developing countries, have gained in soundness, depth, and diversity, prompted in part by a series of financial sector and macroeconomic reforms aimed at fostering a market-driven economy in which finance plays a central role.
... Voir la suite Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has been one of the regions at the forefront of these changes, and it serves as a good laboratory for seeing where the challenges in financial development lie. The progress in financial development in LAC no doubt reflects governments' substantial efforts to provide an enabling environment. This includes lower macroeconomic volatility, more independent and better anchored currencies, increased financial liberalization, lower currency mismatches and foreign debt exposures, enhanced effectiveness of regulation and supervision, and notable improvements in the underlying market infrastructure. This book studies the recent history of financial sector development and reforms in the LAC region and compares it to other developing and developed countries to shed light on the key obstacles to financial development, both past and future. This study is particularly timely in the wake of the global financial crisis that began in 2008, as assumptions about the underpinnings of efficient and well-functioning markets undergo close scrutiny. This book builds on and complements several overview studies on financial development both in LAC and in the developing world more broadly that have been published in the past decade, including those by the World Bank. It covers additional aspects of the financial development process and focuses on the broader set of LAC countries. The chapters in this book cover different issues related to financial development in LAC. Chapters one through five attempt to ascertain where the region's financial development lies, analyzing in detail some of the reasons and policy implications underlying its gaps in banking depth and equity liquidity, as well as the links between financial development and financial globalization. Chapters six and seven consider two themes that are central to the region's financial development: long-term finance and the role of the state in risk bearing. Chapters eight through eleven deal with regulation and supervision, first taking stock of the progress in the region and then analyzing the challenges LAC faces on three main facets of systemic oversight: macro prudential policy, micro systemic regulation, and systemic supervision.
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Across the world, supply for financial services rarely matches the demand, given multiple market frictions. This paper discusses the concept of the financial possibilities frontier as a constrained optimum to categorize different problems of shallow financial markets or unsustainable expansion.
... Voir la suite The paper offers three examples of how to use different data sources to apply the frontier concept to assess the state of financial systems.
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This paper assesses European bank deleveraging and its impact on global credit conditions. Before the onset of the global financial crisis, European banks had rapidly expanded their foreign lending activities.
... Voir la suite However, European banks have since been tightening credit conditions in Europe more for longer-term lending, a trend that banks expect to continue. European financial stress has been transmitted to emerging markets that have experienced a sustained deterioration of credit standards and funding conditions. As a result, European lending in emerging markets has been lagging behind lending of other international banks although European banks remain a dominant source of funding. "Good" bank deleveraging is still necessary from a prudential perspective. Although acute "bad" deleveraging pressures due to financial stress, which can trigger a credit crunch, have subsided recently on account of decisive policy measures, tail risks remain. Curtailing lending will probably be a core component of this multi-year deleveraging process. Taken together, European bank deleveraging warrants close attention.
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This paper introduces the Global Financial Development Database, an extensive dataset of financial system characteristics for 205 economies from 1960 to 2010.
... Voir la suite The database includes measures of (a) size of financial institutions and markets (financial depth), (b) degree to which individuals can and do use financial services (access), (c) efficiency of financial intermediaries and markets in intermediating resources and facilitating financial transactions (efficiency), and (d) stability of financial institutions and markets (stability). The authors document cross-country differences and time series trends.
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Just before the 2008-09 global financial crisis, policymakers were concerned about the rapid growth of bank credit, particularly in Europe; now worry centers on a potential global credit crunch led by European banking institutions.
... Voir la suite Overall, credit conditions across Europe deteriorated markedly in late 2011. Spillover effects are being felt around the globe and imply significant channels through which deleveraging could have disruptive consequences for credit conditions in emerging markets, particularly in emerging Europe. Significant liquidity support provided by the European Central Bank was a "game changer," at least in the short term, as it helped revive markets and limited the risk of disorderly deleveraging. However, the extent, speed, and impact of European bank deleveraging remain highly dependent on the evolution of economic growth and market conditions, which in turn are guided by the ultimate impact of European Central Bank liquidity support, resolution of the sovereign debt crisis within the Euro Area, and the ability of the European rescue fund to provide an effective firewall against contagion.
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Just before the 2008-9 global financial crises, policy makers were concerned about the rapid growth of bank credit, particularly in Europe; now, worry centers on a potential global credit crunch led by European banking institutions.
... Voir la suite While recognizing that concrete evidence is limited by significant data gaps and lags, this note discusses the dynamics of European bank deleveraging and possible implications for emerging market economies (EMEs). Overall, the information available as of early 2012 shows a marked deterioration of credit conditions across Europe. Data also suggest that spillover effects are already being felt around the globe and imply significant channels through which deleveraging could have disruptive short and long-term consequences for credit conditions in EMEs, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). However, the significant liquidity support provided by the European Central Bank (ECB) since December may be a 'game changer,' at least in the short term, because it has helped revive markets and limited the risk of disorderly deleveraging. The extent, speed, and impact of European bank deleveraging will henceforth depend largely on the evolution of market conditions, which in turn are guided by the ultimate impact of ECB liquidity support, attainment of sovereign debt sustainability and fiscal convergence within the euro zone, and credibility of the European rescue fund as an effective firewall against contagion.
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This paper analyzes the bright and dark sides of the financial development process through the lenses of the four fundamental frictions to which agents are exposed -- information asymmetry, enforcement, collective action, and collective cognition.
... Voir la suite Financial development is shaped by the efforts of market participants to grind down or circumvent these frictions, a process further spurred by financial innovation and scale and network effects. The analysis leads to broad predictions regarding the sequencing and convexity of the dynamic paths for a battery of financial development indicators. The method used also yields a robust way to benchmark the financial development paths followed by individual countries or regions. The paper explores the reasons for path deviations and gaps relative to the benchmark. Demand-related effects (past output growth), financial crashes, and supply-related effects (the quality of the enabling environment) all play an important role. Informational frictions are easier to overcome than contractual frictions, not least because of the transferability of financial innovation across borders.
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This paper examines the evolving importance of banks and securities markets during the process of economic development. As economies develop, they increase their demand for the services provided by securities markets relative to those provided by banks, such that securities markets become increasingly important for future economic development.
... Voir la suite Some exploratory evidence further suggests that deviations of a countrys actual financial structure -- the mixture of banks and markets operating in an economy -- from the estimated optimal structure are associated with lower levels of economic activity.
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Although both domestic and foreign private banks have gained ground in MENA in recent years, state banks continue to play an important role in many countries.
... Voir la suite Using a MENA bank-level panel dataset for the period 2001-08, the paper contributes to the empirical literature by documenting recent ownership trends and assessing the role of ownership and bank performance in MENA while accounting for key bank characteristics such as size and balance sheet composition. The paper analyzes headline performance indicators as well as their key drivers and finds that state banks exhibit significantly weaker performance, despite their larger size. This result is mainly driven by a larger holding of government securities, higher costs due to larger staffing numbers, and larger loan loss provisions reflecting weaker asset quality. The results reflect both operational inefficiencies and policy mandates. The paper also provides a detailed performance analysis of foreign and listed banks. Foreign banks are fairly new in MENA, yet perform on par with domestic banks despite their smaller size and higher investment costs. Listed banks exhibit superior performance driven by higher interest margins even in the face of higher costs associated with listing. Taken together, the results do not reject the development role for state banks, but do show that their intervention comes at a cost. As such, there is scope to reduce the share of state banks in some countries and to clarify the mandates, improve the governance, and strengthen the operational efficiency of most state banks in MENA.
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The insurance sector can play a critical role in financial and economic development. By reducing uncertainty and the impact of large losses, the sector can encourage new investments, innovation, and competition.
... Voir la suite As financial intermediaries with long investment horizons, insurance companies can contribute to the provision of long-term instruments to finance corporate investment and housing. There is evidence of a causal relationship between insurance sector development and economic growth. However, there have been few studies examining the factors that drive the development of the insurance industry. This paper contributes to the literature by examining the determinants of insurance premiums (both life and non-life premiums) and total assets for a panel of about 90 countries during the period 2000-08. The results show that life sector premiums are driven by per capita income, population size and density, demographic structures, income distribution, the size of the public pension system, state ownership of insurance companies, the availability of private credit, and religion. The non-life sector is affected by these and other variables. While some of these drivers are structural, the results also show that the development of the insurance sector can be influenced by a number of policy variables.
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This paper analyzes the finances of Egypt's listed firms and the performance of the Egyptian stock exchange during the period 2003-07/08.
... Voir la suite Egyptian companies can be clearly divided into a top tier and a second tier. Egypt's top tier of listed firms tends to finance themselves mainly from operating cash flows, trade credits, and other short-term borrowing. This raises questions as to whether recent performance could have been even better had these firms done more in the way of long-term financing and long-term investment. This issue is even starker for a large second tier of much smaller firms. Regarding the stock market, the analysis finds that the Egyptian Exchange has experienced extraordinary market capitalization growth fueled by strong price increases. Market activity has been increasing as well, but reached expected levels only recently. Despite strong improvement, however, many companies remain illiquid. In its ability to raise capital, Egypt seems to do well, but privatizations and relatively low gross fixed capital formation might distort this picture.
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The expansion of deposit insurance and introduction of debt guarantees have played a crucial role in containing the financial crisis while giving governments time to develop suitable policy responses.
... Voir la suite But these measures do not address the root causes of the crisis, and they lead to competitive distortions, moral hazard, and large fiscal contingent liabilities. Rolling them back is likely to require an internationally coordinated effort and an answer to the important question, 'exit to what?'
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Capitalizing on recent improvements in the availability of cross-country financial sector data, this paper proposes a standard methodology for benchmarking the policy component of financial development.
... Voir la suite Systematic controls are introduced to isolate main structural country characteristics and a principal components analysis is used to help identify a parsimonious set of ten "core" outcome indicators from a broader set of twenty seven potential indicators covering different dimensions of development in both financial institutions and financial markets. Such a broad-based approach helps reveal important determinants and regularities of the process of financial development. The paper also identifies some of the main data gaps that will need to be filled to allow further progress in financial benchmarking looking forward.
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